As we UCLA students slog through final exams, we like to commiserate about our exams, projects, and papers and then reassure each other that it’ll all be over soon. In Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China, people often use the expression “add oil (加油)” to encourage each other, especially…

I tend to bookmark things on the intention of going back to read them … but sometimes I forget.  But back in 2006, TIME Magazine published this really cool feature on “60 Years of Asian Heroes” which I argue is a timeless piece. How can we talk about…

When I was an exchange student in Hong Kong two years ago, I learned that in Asia, some people (usually the older generation) assume that to be “American” is to be white. In Hong Kong, I chatted with some elderly Chinese and told them I was an exchange student from the…

Two university professors at Florida State University and University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered a decrease in racial prejudice that occurred during the Nov. 4 election. They call this the Obama Effect. A series of studies and experiments done with 300 non-black (white, Asian or Hispanic) students, designed to…

Have you ever noticed that many East Asians and Southeast Asians hold up a peace sign when posing for casual photos? My first exposure to this was when I studied abroad in Hong Kong.  Almost without fail, whenever my local peers posed for a photo, up went their…

So I’ve been following the Kogi taco truck around for the past few weeks. On Twitter. Kogi is the brainchild of Mark Manguera, whose fusion of Korean BBQ and the ubiquitous taco truck has created a Los Angeles food sensation.  People keep talking about it – in class,…